"Is Ubuntu an operating system? Last week at EuroOSCON, Mark Shuttleworth gave the closing keynote outlining what he believes are the major struggles faced by the open-source/free-software community. During his talk, it became clear that Ubuntu is trying to achieve a radical shift in the software world. Ubuntu isn't trying to be a platform for mass-market application software: it is trying to be the primary provider of both the operating system and all the application software that a typical user would want to run on his machine. Most Linux distributions are like this, and I think it is a dangerous trend that will stifle innovation and usability."

Distro's ship everything plus the kitchen sink and it's bad for business. But it's not because of some paradigm shift, rather the same basic problem Linux has always had : methods of installing third party software on Linux is broken.

Those who dare and venture out of the realm of packages blessed by their distro for that particular release of their OS find themselves in the quagmire of compiling from source, dependancy hell, incompatibility, etc which dwarf any problems on other platforms.

Sure there is hope. Klik is nice for example, but untill all major Linux distros get together on an easy way for independants to distribute their software to Linux users they will never get the mainstream acceptance they seek.

Edit: I agree with the author Mac-style app bundles would rock on Linux, unfortunately most oss developers seem to suffer from an extreem version of NIH-syndrome - NIBM (Not Invented By Me).